Frozen Orb Damage.....specifics needed

[Dani]

Dani: i put all the absorb items on a 91 paladin of mine.  when he goes with all coldabsorb + mass resist to cold + salavation he will still take dmg from high lev orb/pierce in hell games.  oh and if i take off all my resist cold items and only use absorb i take a lot more dmg. 

Yes you will take damage. For the first shard the absorb does nothing. The second and all after that might slightly lower or raise your life depending on that random damage. In theory at least you shouldn't receive lethal damage if you have enough life (3 times shard damage to be totally safe I guess).
If in reality you can receive lethal (cold) damage in such situation, then absorb does not work as documented.

And yes, I've never died to Orb with that Blackoak using paladin, though I have no idea what level skills the Sorcies were using.